The VSS Vintorez is overpowered

[-Gews- 1]

well no wonder why it is powerful since it uses 9x39mm SP-6 (high performance armor piercing) and the 9x39 is based on 7.62×39 mm, SP-6 Maximum penetration is up to 10 mm of steel... What do you think that will do inside human body?

Armour penetration doesn't have much to do with terminal ballistics. It just means it will go through body armour because the bullet is hard and pointy. In some cases more armour penetration even means less effectiveness, as in the case of the 5.56mm.

The standard M885 round the US Army uses in the M4 is less effective on unarmoured opponents because it has less tendency to fragment than the old M193. Although it is designed to penetrate body armour better, it is not as effective on those without. And a 5.56mm armour-piercing round will penetrate 12mm steel at 100m, which is more than the 9x39mm.

9x39mm is not a powerful round, and it wasn't designed to be!

[max power 21]

Well, it was designed to yaw, and it has more of a side profile than the pistol rounds to present.

[-Gews- 1]

Well, it was designed to yaw, and it has more of a side profile than the pistol rounds to present.

It is true it was designed to yaw, and that would increase stopping power. However many other rifle rounds in the game also yaw or even fragment, and those rounds have more energy as well (note that the M995 in the picture yaws, and is armour piercing, but does less damage than the normal 5.56mm rounds because the bullet is designed to penetrate armour and not to fragment).

Even with yawing I don't see it being so powerful.

[max power 21]

Very nice. I've seen these charts before. None of the rounds in there are pistol rounds, though.

Even with yawing I don't see it being so powerful.

You can't have it both ways.

I did a spread sheet for cubic inches of tissue disruption using different kinds of simulations (tumbling, round nosed lead, fmj, etc) travelling through a homogenous ballistic medium for a mod I was working on. To check the validity of the simulation, I compared the simulated wound profiles to those charts. If we were using this metric alone, the 5.56mm would be the most powerful round in the game but for the .50 bmj. It does twice the damage of an m21 inside a 9 inch wound tract, and 4 times most pistol rounds. The problem with that is, this fragmentation only happens in the first 100 yards or so. After that, the 5.56 round does considerably less, and giving the m16 that kind of damage neglects the fact the simulation changes over range, and other factors such as body armour. If the high sectional density of the 9x39 round meant that it not only went through body armour without slowing down much, but also yawed without slowing down much, it would be considerably more powerful than a 5.56 at ranges longer than 100m. In fact, just given its dimensions, the yawing motion would cause the round to cut a tract through the body that is twice as wide as the .45 during the yaw.

[-Gews- 1]

Very nice. I've seen these charts before. None of the rounds in there are pistol rounds, though.

You can't have it both ways.

I did a spread sheet for cubic inches of tissue disruption using different kinds of simulations (tumbling, round nosed lead, fmj, etc) travelling through a homogenous ballistic medium for a mod I was working on. To check the validity of the simulation, I compared the simulated wound profiles to those charts. If we were using this metric alone, the 5.56mm would be the most powerful round in the game but for the .50 bmj. It does twice the damage of an m21 inside a 9 inch wound tract, and 4 times most pistol rounds. The problem with that is, this fragmentation only happens in the first 100 yards or so. After that, the 5.56 round does considerably less, and giving the m16 that kind of damage neglects the fact the simulation changes over range, and other factors such as body armour. If the high sectional density of the 9x39 round meant that it not only went through body armour without slowing down much, but also yawed without slowing down much, it would be considerably more powerful than a 5.56 at ranges longer than 100m. In fact, just given its dimensions, the yawing motion would cause the round to cut a tract through the body that is twice as wide as the .45 during the yaw.

I am aware the standard 5.56mm has a problem with fragmenting after it slows down to about 2,500-2,700 fps. I don't think it's possible to model that with the current engine though. There isn't any data on how effective the SP-5 is at yawing. The available information only says it has a cavity in the tip to put the weight at the rear of the bullet. Another round that does that is the .303 British, and that is modeled in ArmA 2 as well. They put a lighter material (wood pulp, compressed paper or aluminum) in the nose for that specific purpose.

However the .303 does less damage than the 7.62 NATO in the game, so it appears that they do not model tumbling because it would be quite difficult to ascertain the actual effectiveness. The .303 also does less damage than the Vintorez even though it also is designed to tumble and has many times the energy.

[max power 21]

I think I already established that I'm not arguing for rifle damage. I'm saying that it's not so simple to compare it to a pistol. The Lee Enfield tends to kill anyone in one hit so are you sure it pragmatically does less damage than the 7.62? My point was not that the 5.56 loses its fragmentation at the cannelure, but rather, those charts are not the best basis for in game damage because they are at very close to the muzzle velocity of their test weapon. Furthermore, I have read that an uncomplicated leg wound from a 7.62x39 fmj is not much more severe than a 9mm pistol round, and that getting hit through the soft tissue of a .50 bmg round is not so bad as one would think. It is if these rounds hit a bone, or pierce a non-elastic structure like the liver or brain, that they distinguish themselves from pistol rounds. So on the one hand you have a rifle doing similar damage to a pistol, and people surviving getting hit with what is essentially a machine cannon. On the other hand, you have the same rounds doing semi-amputations.

Edited January 22, 2013 by Max Power

[Tokyomurai 10]

I'm going to test this out